The modern name is derived from Mexitli, one of the names of the Aztec god of war Huitzilopochtli, which name was later on applied also to the Aztecs themselves.
As a humming-bird Huitzilopochtli was alleged to have led the Aztecs to a new home.
The word is related to or derived from the name of the Mexican national war-god, Mexitl, better known as Huitzilopochtli.
When the first Moteuczoma was crowned king of the Aztecs, the Mexican sway extended far beyond the valley plateau of its origin, and the gods of conquered nations around had their shrines set up in Tenochtitlan in manifest inferiority to the temple of Huitzilopochtli, the war-god of the Aztec conquerors.
These deities are not easily ' One of the most important sources for the ancient Mexican traditions and myths is the so-called " Codex Chimalpopoca," a manuscript in the Mexican language discovered by the Abbe analysed, but on the other hand Tonatiuh and Metztli, the sun and moon, stand out distinctly as nature gods, and the traveller still sees in the huge adobe pyramids of Teotihuacan, with their sides oriented to the four quarters, an evidence of the importance of their worship. The war-god Huitzilopochtli was the real head of the Aztec pantheon; his idol remains in Mexico, a huge block of basalt on which is sculptured on the one side his hideous personage, adorned with the humming-bird feathers on the left hand which signify his name, while the not less frightful war-goddess Teoyaomiqui, or " divine wardeath," occupies the other side.